The sporting community spat when it realized it was in danger of experiencing Marine Le Pen’s Olympics, but four months later it is experiencing an enduring nightmare. Donald Trump will be the host of the triple celebration that will be hosted in the USA within his own four years: the Club World Cup in 2025, the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympic Games in 2028. Of course, if Trump, America and humanity still exist by then…
The United States was unanimously nominated for the 2028 Games on September 13, 2017, as Trump completed nine months as president. Of course, the preparatory work had started several years earlier and the decision was predetermined, since there was no other candidate city. That didn’t stop Trump from appropriating the time-delayed success.
“We got the Olympics thanks to my own work,” he wrote in August 2024. “Competition from other countries was intense. I told them what they wanted to hear and the job was done. I hope that in 2028 I will be president again and welcome you in Los Angeles!
The dreaded Trump’s post was accompanied by a direct attack on Barack Obama whom he succeeded in 2016: “President Obama refused to talk to the International Olympic Committee, perhaps because his earlier personal proposal was rejected.” And indeed the IOC had “grounded” Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games, which ended up in Rio despite Obama’s personal campaign in favor of his hometown.
The nail for Paris
The 78-year-old Trump watched the Paris Games on television and criticized the much-discussed opening ceremony: “I’m open-minded, but what we watched was embarrassing,” said the … open-minded in an interview with Fox News. “Since I’m elected president, you’re not going to see a ceremony with this kind of reenactment of the Last Supper.” His statements were warmly applauded by religious people, fundamentalists and other opponents of the so-called “woke culture” in the USA. Trump triumphed with … deafening percentages in conservative states. In his election campaign he emphasized many times that “men are not going to participate in women’s competitions again”. An American swimmer, Riley Gaines, has launched a personal crusade against a transgender teammate she lost to in college competition. Globally unknown, Gaines became a brand thanks to her homophobic campaign and found a prominent place on the Republican platform.
The IOC avoided taking a position in the early days of Trump’s election to the presidency, but the concern is palpable. The ubiquitous far-right has led the online barrage against boxers Iman Kelif (Algeria) and Lin Yu-Ting (Taiwan) who won gold medals in Paris despite being banned from the championships of the sport’s world federation – ostracized by the Olympic movement. Coincidentally, Calif was again under the microscope earlier this week when reports in France wanted her to have male chromosomes. The Algerian girl, who has already taken legal action against Trump, Elon Musk and other slanderers, is threatening new lawsuits.
If the tradition of previous Olympians is followed, Trump will officially open the curtain on the 2028 Games, as Ronald Reagan did in 1984 in the same Los Angeles, Bill Clinton in 1996 in Atlanta and George W. Bush in 2002 at the Winter Games in Sault Ste. Lake City. Bookies are already taking bets on tomorrow’s Vice President Jay D. Vance as host in ’28, since Trump will be 82 then. His health does not appear to be at its best and he persistently refuses to disclose his medical history. The 2026 World Cup is scheduled to be held jointly in the USA, Canada and Mexico. But Trump is promising to deport millions of illegal as well as legal immigrants, especially those who cross the Rio Grande River at the southern US border.
How exactly will Trump’s xenophobic policy be reconciled with the map of the sports movement and on what foundations will the cooperation with Mexico be built? FIFA as well as the IOC promote equality, tolerance, respect, solidarity, friendship and social progress in their statutes. The problem is not only political but also economic. Recent flirtations with countries with a dirty record (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc.) have pushed generous sponsors to the front door, and no one will want to indirectly associate their name with concentration camps and deportations. Companies that have dropped out of sponsorship programs, from Panasonic to Bridgestone to Toyota, are not necessarily American interests.
The groom and the World Cup
Trump began his first term at the same time as FIFA strongman Gianni Infantino, with whom they were often photographed as penguins in love, even inside the White House. FIFA will also host its maiden Club World Cup in 2025 in eleven US cities, where at least it won’t have to deal with pesky Mexicans.
“Football unites the planet,” wrote a jubilant Infantino on the night of Trump’s return. “The boss is more than 100 percent happy with the result of the American election,” a person familiar with the Swiss told the English-language “Independent”. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was in 2018 the main driver of pressure on FIFA for the nomination of the 2026 World Cup.
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